Teaching social ethics from a standpoint of practical application often inspires my students to take action. Not surprisingly, they will sometimes ask me to join them in the struggle for justice.
“Dr. D, we are headed downtown to get arrested,” they often say. “Will you join us in our protest against [insert cause here]?”
My response is always the same: “I’m a Latino; I don’t have to go get arrested; it comes naturally for our people. Occupying a Latine body (or a Black body, an Indigenous body) is sufficient grounds for getting arrested.”
For people who are a part of disenfranchised communities of color, arrest is a frequent risk of living in this country. There is no need to go out and seek direct confrontation with the authorities just for the sake of proving how liberal we are.
A protestor of color can expect to be treated differently than a Euro-American protestor. The consequences they face, simply due to the body they occupy, are usually greater.
Protesting to get arrested may earn our white liberal colleagues a badge of honor or street cred. But for persons of color, history has shown what a terrible and dangerous thing it is to fall into the hands of the police.
What might be theatrics to my dear white liberals can be death-dealing for those without the privilege of whiteness. Theatrics? Yes.
As I often remind people, we must go to the police department to get a permit from the police department to protest the police department about the police brutality of the police department. We have domesticated protest.
We drive to a march, which is a privilege not available in most of the world. If we’re lucky, we get arrested, post bail, go home, and post pictures of our activism on Facebook, hoping we get a lot of “likes.” Meanwhile, little changes because the social structures have created a space for impotent protest.
Don’t get me wrong. At times, taking a stance may lead to arrest or worse. The possibility of experiencing consequences for engaging in liberative practice is real.
But I do not seek it. Why? Because attempts to get arrested take focus and resources away from the disenfranchised—the reason for the protest—and put them on those seeking to prove their activism.
I suggest instead we do the work of liberation, clear-headed that our action may lead to negative consequences with the authorities. Not that we seek such consequences, but at times, they simply cannot be avoided.
Over a decade ago, a group of my students and I were detained by the border patrol. We were walking the trails migrants take to leave water, food, and medicine. As we returned to our camp, Border Patrol was waiting for us.
We found out about their presence because one of our students who stayed behind at the camp texted us to warn us of the raid.
We pulled our jeep over and talked. Do we return to camp and probably face arrest or do we wait and see what happens? We decided that, as an act of solidarity, we needed to stand with our colleagues back at camp.
One person in our vehicle, however, was an international student on a visa. We decided that the consequences would be greater for him than for the rest of us, so we dropped him off in town and headed back.
When we arrived, we too were detained. Our detention lasted hours.
We sat in the hot sun as they searched our camp. Finding several undocumented expats to whom we were providing medical care, they arrested them. Then they began to consider what to do with the rest of us.
We did everything in our power to avoid arrest. I explained that I was a priest and that my class of seminarians was doing God’s work of feeding the hungry, providing refreshment to the thirsty, clothing the naked, and welcoming the alien within our midst.
This gave them pause. We did get word to our organization’s attorney, who began contacting the border patrol’s DC offices to explain the situation that they were about to arrest a large group of clergy.
Why avoid arrest? Because the funds that would have been spent to keep us out of jail could be better used to buy more food, water, and medicine to leave on the trails. Arrest would have put the focus on us, rather than on the migrants.
Yes, to take a stand might lead to arrest or worse. But one should never take a stand to prove how liberal they are by seeking arrest. It’s not about you.
One takes a stand as an act of solidarity, a solidarity which, at times, comes with consequences.
For a decade after that incident, I was audited by the IRS every year. Coincidence? When I asked immigrant rights warriors in Tucson if they had similar experiences, they simply laughed at my naivety.
Yes—there are always consequences; consequences we do not seek, but may come all the same.
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Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.